


a long way back to where we came from

by Teddydora



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, LIKE A LOT OF ANGST, M/M, Pete's World (Doctor Who), Slow Burn, Stormcage Containment Facility, no beta we die like jack harkness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27713425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teddydora/pseuds/Teddydora
Summary: Jack Harkness had been looking for the Doctor everywhere. The closest he got to it was accidentally teleporting all three of her current companions onto a stolen ship, making out with one of them, issuing a vague but clear warning about the lone cyberman and teleporting them all away again while being killed by nanogenes.When Jack rescues the Doctor from prison, they don't expect to end up in Pete's world on an adventure and have Rose Tyler return with them.
Relationships: Jack Harkness & Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Metacrisis Doctor/Rose Tyler (former), Thirteenth Doctor & Jack Harkness, Thirteenth Doctor & Rose Tyler, Thirteenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 24
Kudos: 121





	1. Prologue

A few months after the Doctor left Rose, the Metacrisis and her mother at Dalig Ulf Stranden, she married the Metacrisis Doctor (renamed John Noble). They had a long happy marriage, spent on adventures, missions with Torchwood and growing their TARDIS hybrid, from a sample “borrowed” from the original Doctor’s TARDIS. 

The only problem with their lives was that while John was perfectly normal (well, as normal as someone like him could be), Rose wasn’t aging. They hadn’t noticed it at first but around the time when Rose was about fifty and John sixty, they started getting regular comments about golddiging and creepy old men. 

The reason Rose wasn’t aging was perfectly obvious: her stint as the Bad Wolf, however short, had had lasting effects. Everlasting effects. 

She brushed it off, deciding to ignore it for the next few decades. It was still embarrassing, when her baby brother and his children all looked older than her. Her mum was extremely impressed though (and extremely envious) and constantly bemoaned her lack of immortality and youthfulness. 

(Rose would’ve switched places with her in a heartbeat if it means she got to live and die with her husband and not exist forever. She had met Cassandra. She knew that age corrupted. She knew she would be corrupted)

When John died, she couldn’t take it anymore. She left, taking only two things from her life: her wedding ring and her TARDIS. 

For years she did what she once did with the Doctors. Her Doctors. She whizzed around planets, fixing problems (making them too), meeting people and having an excellent time, all things regarded. 

Jack Harkness had been looking for the Doctor everywhere. The closest he got to it was accidentally teleporting all three of her current companions onto a stolen ship, making out with one of them, issuing a vague but clear warning about the lone cyberman and teleporting them all away again while being killed by nanogenes. 

He had been sitting in a bar, looking for someone who vaguely resembled one of his exes to have a meaningless hookup with when he heard two Judoon talking in the corner about a new prisoner they had imprisoned on behalf of the Shadow Proclamation for not leading them into war. 

His Judoon was not fluent and he was kind of drunk (as drunk as he could get) but he could still somewhat understand them so he followed them until he managed to eavesdrop on the location of the prisoner that he was certain to be the Doctor. 

Immediately, he programmed his vortex manipulator for the meteorite based prison of Stormcage and headed there immediately. 

Unfortunately, when he landed, he was inside a dark cupboard. Pressing his ear to the door, he heard a troop of Judoon guards marching outside. Despite his immortality, his breath hitched in his throat, afraid to get caught and blow his cover, destroying his plan and dooming the Doctor even further. 

After they passed, he waited for two minutes and, satisfied with the silence of the hallway, snuck out of the cupboard, closed it as quietly as he could and crept down to the end of the hallway where there was a map with floors and cell numbers written on it. 

Cells in Stormcage were sorted by the amount of years a person had been sentenced and from what Jack remembered about his eavesdropped investigation on the drunken Judoon, the Doctor had been sentenced fifteen hundred years for her apparent crimes. 

That was one of the longest sentences that the Shadow Proclamation ever handed out, as far as Jack knew, due to the lack of longevity that the majority of species possessed. 

And thus, Jack headed down to the ground floor, ever conscious of the fact that Judoon wouldn’t hesitate to put him in a matching cell to the Doctor if they found him. 

After climbing down five hundred sets of stairs, Jack’s legs were aching, to say the least. He exited the stairwell and crept along the dark corridor, checking the gap in each cell door for a distressed, oddly dressed woman. 

However, this was a prison for (at least) partially insane space renegades so Jack had to narrow his selection pool of possible Doctors. He managed this by programming his vortex manipulator to find a person in a five hundred metre vicinity with two hearts and a respiratory bypass. 

It beeped loudly, setting off an alarm, so Jack dashed to the selected cell and broke the lock to let himself in. 

There, in the far corner of the dimly lit room, in an orange jumpsuit was a woman, carving a tally mark into the wall. 

Jack, despite his enhanced 51st century genetics, couldn’t fully make her out. He whispered “Doctor?” and was met with the same northern accent that Yaz and Graham had.

“Jack Harkness? After all this time? I thought I would have to outlive this place to get out.” She stepped into visibility and Jack could finally make her out: Unkempt brown hair that had been visibly dyed blonde at some point and grown out, a loud orange jumpsuit tied around her waist and a white vest instead of a shirt with shoes that didn’t have soles anymore, just foot coverings now. 

She chuckled, almost irritably and said “Well? Are we going or are we going to be arrested by angry and hungover Judoon?” 

Jack blinked a couple of times, to gather his wits after processing another regeneration of one of his longest lasting friends. The troop of Judoon thundering down the stairs was excellent at sobering him up and he grabbed the Doctor’s arm and they ran as fast as they could. 

The Doctor now was at least a good foot shorter than him and he was tempted, for a moment to simply pick her up and carry her to safety, then he remembered how scary the Doctor could get and banished that thought to the far reaches of his mind. (He promised himself he would do it another time though. Just not once so… perilous).


	2. Chapter One

At last the pair found asylum… in an abandoned prison bathroom. Jack programmed new coordinates into his vortex manipulator and the next thing he knew, they were in Cardiff. At… at… at Ianto’s old flat.

Jack attempted to swallow down his feelings of regret and sorrow as he unwillingly remembered Ianto and his time with him: the time they spent together on missions from hunting weevils to blowing up Serenity Plaza, how he treated people (respectfully, compassionate, kind to every citizen of Cardiff), his coffee (that delicious, rich coffee), his voice (Oh, the way his Welsh accent pronounced things, “Jack” for example), his smile (that lit up every room and has been missing from his life ever since the 456). 

Tears pricked at Jack’s eyes and he (mostly unsuccessfully) blinked them away. The Doctor tapped his arm insistently and Jack finally heard what she was saying, “...hear me? Jack, are you listening?” 

Jack looked right at her, eyes still red, “Yes, yes, sorry zoned out for a minute there.” The Doctor frowned, obviously worried,

“Jack? Is everything okay?” Jack let out a huge sigh, regretting taking the Doctor here. 

“I’ll explain inside,” he muttered. 

Jack had assumed ownership of Ianto’s flat when he died, the idea of other people having the flat that he had, sharing moments where he had shared them with someone who he could no longer share moments with, sickened him.

Hands shaking, he took his key out and attempted to unlock the door but could never catch the lock. The Doctor gently grasped his wrist and took the key from him before unlocking the door. 

Ianto’s flat was exactly how he and Jack had left it when Ianto left it for the last time, except Gwen had taken the food out of the fridge and cleaned it before it rotted. Jack only visited a handful of times a year but when he did, he left everything as it was, for fear of accidentally disturbing the essence of Ianto.

The Doctor, seemingly exhausted, collapsed against one of the pearly white cabinets in Ianto’s (no, the flat’s) kitchenette. She attempted to clear her throat several times before coughing up some blood and sputum. 

“Well,” she finally said, “I think we can both tell that prison has not been the place for me. But, but Jack-” her voice cracked at the last few words. Jack slunk down until he was next to her and placed his arm around her shoulder. He spoke gently,

“Doctor, what happened? You got my warning about the Cyberman, didn’t you?” She nodded listlessly. 

“I’m sorry but I did the opposite of what you asked me to do. I had no choice, Percy Shelly would have died before his time and interrupted the timestream and seriously affected history. He’s gone now, though, the Cyberman I mean. Ko Sharmus, a friend of mine, blew him to kingdom come along with the Master and the- the corpses.” 

Her voice was getting thicker the longer she spoke and it sounded like she was trying to swallow a very painful lump in her throat. Jack was confused. He didn’t know anything about corpses but he could tell that the Doctor had been horribly traumatised by whatever the Lone Cyberman and- and the Master? 

Whatever the Lone Cyberman and someone he had mistakenly thought to be long dead had done to her. In that split second, Captain Jack Harkness swore to himself that he would help the Doctor recover until she inevitably sent him away… again

\---

After a few hours lounging against Jack’s arm, the Doctor decided to clean herself up. She assumed that the stuff in the flat belonged to someone who had now died but had meant a lot to Jack. She understood the feeling - it had taken her years to recover from losing Susan, Vicki, Katriana, James, Liz, Mel, Ace, Amy, Rory, Clara, Bill, Rose. 

She didn’t know if she would ever recover from Rose but it helped that she knew that she was happy with the metacrisis and her family. Jack was sleeping now, so she carefully slid his arm away from her and gradually stood up, careful not to disturb him from the rest he so desperately needed. 

The shower gel and shampoo was expired so she went out to find the nearest pharmacy to buy new supplies. 

Jack was snoring gently when she returned so she propped a pillow from the bed against his head and laid him on the floor so that he wouldn’t suffer the horrors of neck cramp when he woke up, like how so many humans do. 

He was still in that position when she had washed and had come out of the shower, feeling a lot more fresh. He was still dead to the world when she had cut her hair into the bob she had so often favoured and then dyed it back to her favourite shade of blonde, like Rose, her mind whispered. 

At that point, they had been in the flat for around twelve hours so the Doctor first, ordered pizza (meat supreme, to build up her strength after months in prison) and then attempted to shake Jack awake, “Jack,” she whispered, before repeating his name a touch louder when it didn’t rouse him. 

He woke with a jump, obviously surprised, looking around, panicked. “Oh,” he sighed, “It’s just you, and you’ve cleaned up! Looking great, Doctor! Have you ever considered ombre highlights?” The Doctor blinked several times in confusion. She had forgotten Jack’s everything. It had been more than four billion years for her, to be fair. She wondered how long it had been for Jack. 

Judging by the grey and white hairs peppering his scalp, quite a bit longer than she had originally assumed. Maybe a thousand years or so since the bar with Alonso.   
“Doctor? Doctor? Doctor?” Jack’s repetition of her name brought her back from her memories and thoughts. Memories… She shook her head, batting the thoughts away. 

“I got us pizza. I like pizza now, never really did until my last regeneration, now that was a fun body. People let you get away with so much if you’re an old man. I miss that treatment. This is the first time in so long since I’ve been a woman, you know?”

“What kind of pizza,” said Jack, springing to his feet, “When were you a woman before?”

“Meat Supreme. I honestly struggle to count before but I thought this was my thirteenth life, you know? Turns out it’s one of many hundreds. Last time I was a woman though, oh, that must have been the fourteenth regeneration before this one.”

“I’m- I’m sorry? How many lives?” Jack’s face was comically wide, eyes stretched to their maxim, eyebrows almost disappearing into his hairline, mouth dropped like a trapdoor. The Doctor tried not to grimace. She hadn’t planned on telling Jack straight away. Damn her and her incessant rambling. 

“It’s a whole… thing. Let’s eat though, pizza’s going to get cold and I’m going to need so much energy to explain it. 

“Right… Meat Supreme. Perfect.” Jack sounded… not upset. Remorseful. Regretful. The Doctor could understand that. It wasn’t exactly a foreign feeling to her. 

He picked a piece up, “I haven’t eaten Meat Supreme in hundreds of years. Is this Jubilee Pizza?”

“Yep.” The Doctor took a bite, “Thought it sounded like a good name. Mmmmf, it’s really good!” 

“Yeah. Yeah it is.” Jack threw off his expression, replacing it with a happier one. He pointed at her with his slice, “Hundreds of regenerations. I thought Time Lords only had twelve; explain.”

“So...basically I had my memories wiped several regenerations ago. I’m not sure why but basically I was found on this planet… somewhere by this woman Tecteun. She adopted me but then discovered I could regenerate when I fell off a cliff. Then she used a bunch of my regenerations up, trying to work out what was actually happening. Then she took my regenerationy juice stuff and made a bunch of people on her planet - Gallifrey - into what are now Time Lords, and made herself - himself - the big boss, renamed himself Rassilon. Then… I don’t know really, haven’t fully processed you know?” 

She tapped the side of her head with her pizza, making a bit of meat fall off onto the table, “Aww, I wanted to eat that. Anyways I think I just did my thing until a few lives ago when they took me prisoner, knocked my head around and the rest is history.” 

Jack stared at her, silently brooding on what she said. “Doctor, that sounds, terrible. I can relate with the memory thing and experimentation but I can’t even start to understand what happened. What do you need.”

The Doctor wrinkled her nose, “Not sure yet. You met my companions, right?” Jack nodded, “They all thought I was going to die. So did I, to be fair, one last blowout. I don’t think I’m ready to go back to them. Not yet. I might go do my thing for a while, you wanna come?” 

Jack considered it, brows furrowed, tongue stuck out. “Yeah, all right, I haven’t got much going on anyway. Should be fun.”

“Awesome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Tell me what you thought!


	3. Chapter Two

After a day or so of R&R at Jack’s place (or whoever this place belonged to, there wasn’t a bar, so probably not Jack himself), the Doctor was ready to get back to jumping through time, messing things up and fixing all the issues she caused, as well as a few others. 

However, she did have a glaring issue going forward with that: no TARDIS.

When she mentioned this to Jack he got into his whole Captain Mode (which she probably would’ve found attractive a few lifetimes ago). 

He immediately slammed his hands down (for dramatic purposes  _ of course _ ) “So, where did you last see the TARDIS?”

“I was on my way back to Earth when I was taken by the Judoon. I don’t think they managed to capture her though, she wouldn’t let that happen”

“I agree, I would’ve probably been able to detect it if it was at the prison or had been recently but nada. Ergo,” here he spread his hands, like he was trying to summon sparkles or something ridiculous, “It’s gone somewhere else by itself.”

“Yes. I would say it’s probably on Earth, in this time, since that’s the last place we rested and I’m quite fond of this era - I think she is too.”

“Okay, now going off of those assumptions, I have an old, well… let’s say friend, from UNIT.”

“I thought it was shut down due to some political issue."

“Defunded and put on hold actually but that doesn’t matter - my guy is on the inside of operations.”

The Doctor thought about this for a minute. It  _ would _ be a very efficient way to get Sexy back - UNIT had found the TARDIS before (even if she had been inside it at the time which was… problematic)

“Good plan. How soon can we talk to your old boyfriend or whatever.”

“Actually it was a three night stand,” winked Jack, “He just kept coming back for more.”

“Way too much information Jack, you know I had hoped that age would mellow you but apparently not. How old are you now anyways?”

“Not sure, maybe three, four hundred? And like a good wine, Doctor, I only get better with age.”

“Like wine, you’re vinegar at three hundred.”

“ _ Vinegar? _ Look, do you want my help or not? We can go today, I can get us there with my vortex manipulator - he lives in London.”

“A city boy, huh?” And with that, Jack grabbed her arm and they were jumping through space (not really time though, thank goodness, that was even more awful with a vortex manipulator)

When the Doctor finally felt like she wasn’t going to throw up, she noticed they were now at the Tower of London itself. Jack was already bounding inside, a skip in his step. She jogged 

after him, pushing down the nausea in her stomach. 

Inside, UNIT was more subdued than the Doctor had ever seen it. Long gone were the countless scientists and soldiers rushing around. Instead it was just Osgood, talking to Kate Stewart and what appeared to be… was that Sarah Jane’s boy, Luke? 

Jack interrupted their conversation easily. “Kate! Osgood! Luke! So good to see you all, you’ve grown, Luke. Anyways, does anyone know where I might find John, I have a friend with me who needs his help and he owes me a favour so…”

“Hello Jack, good to see you too. John is in Lab 23 downstairs. Who’s the friend, you can't bring people down here who aren’t cleared.”

“Hello, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart,” said the Doctor, “I’m appalled that you don’t recognise me immediately but such is the curse of regeneration.”

“Doctor?” said all three of them, somehow in unison. 

“Yes, yes, me. Unfortunately I can’t catch up right now but I can talk later, I just have to get to my TARDIS first.” And with that, leaving all three with various expressions of bafflement and shock, she and Jack went to Lab 23. 

The man inside looked a helluva lot like Jack’s type (outside of his general type which was anything that breathed). Brown hair, blue eyes, nice smile. Probably nice arse too if she looked. 

“Jack?” he said, looking confused. Jack nudged the Doctor forward, 

“This is my friend, the Doctor, we need your help to find the TARDIS which we believe is in this timezone and on this planet, so I’m calling in that favour.”

He blinked a couple of times, obviously surprised, “The Doctor? TARDIS? I’d be delighted to help!” He ran over to his computer, a great bloody thing with a thousand billion fans or thereabouts, to keep it from overloading, at the back of the room, behind about a hundred desks with chairs. The Doctor joined him at the keyboard.

She immediately worked out the program needed and took over at the helm, so to speech. Soon enough, there was a beeping signal from the TARDIS. It wasn’t even that far away! In London, the Powell Estate. 

Seeing those words made the Doctor slump against one of the tables. Of course. Of bloody course. Where else would she go if she wanted to be noticed quickly? It made  _ perfect  _ sense. It wasn’t exactly as if the Doctor  _ didn’t  _ visit there every so often, to think  about Rose about stuff. Just normal stuff, like custard creams or mexican with Missy or bow ties and fezzes. Completely normal stuff unrelated to a certain former companion. Definitely. 

This time, the Doctor insisted on getting a bus. No more vortex manipulators, no thank you. She waved away Kate’s offer of a private car too, they didn’t need another pull on their financial resources. Not at this time at least. 

The bus smelled like chips. Lovely greasy, carcinogenic chips. Delicious. 

Nothing to custard creams, but still…

As soon as the bus stopped a few streets nearby the estate, the Doctor shot off like a bullet. She wanted to get in the TARDIS and to stay there. 

It was there! Her blue police box beauty, right there in the park where she once set a trap for those cybermen ghosties. Evil weevils. Her lip curled in disgust in the memory of all the ones she had come across. 

And of course, what the Master had done to her people. To their people! He- Well did it have to be thought about just yet? No.

She ran, nearly bowling over a couple with a pram in her rush. Her girl was just there. 

“Hey Sexy, I’ve missed you,” she muttered into the door before entering the console room. The TARDIS buzzed in her head, an affirmation and return. 

The Doctor collapsed onto one of the chairs that Bill had once so helpfully pointed out didn’t make functional sense. 

She didn't get much relaxation time in though before Jack launched himself through the door. 

“Whew, Doctor, I was scared you were going to abandon me again.”

She forced an enthusiastic grin on her face, “No it would completely ruin this reunion tour thing here.” She turned to the console, “Shut the door, where do you want to go?”

\---

“Jack!” Yelled the Doctor, “How on earth did you think  _ that _ was and kind of a good idea?”

“I didn’t think!” He shouted back, dodging the biomechanical missile that they were being shot at with, “But he was so handsome and his voice. And you would not believe what he could do with his-”

“Okay that’s enough, I have an idea.” She jammed her sonic screwdriver into one of the fallen missiles and hoped with all her might that it would work.

It did. “Thank Rassilon! I completely forgot these were controlled by a hive mind!”

“That was awesome, Doctor, but it looks like we still have an angry horde coming at us.” He was right, they were even waving guns and spears. 

They scarpered back to the TARDIS, barely making it in time. The Doctor placed in a code absentmindedly and they were gone. 

“What the everloving _ fuck _ do you think you’re doing on my TARDIS.” c alled a voice the Doctor hadn’t heard in such a long time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who it is...
> 
> Kudos and comments really make my day!


	4. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who's back

When the Doctor turned back around she flinched in surprise. Rose Tyler was standing there, some blaster in hand, her face a mixture of fury and confusion.

How? How was  _ Rose Tyler _ there with them?

“I  _ asked _ you, who are you, how did you get here and why are you here?”

“Actually you asked us what the everloving fuck we were doing here.” Said Jack, his hand drifting to what the doctor resignedly knew was a gun. 

“Shut up, Jack… wait Jack?” Rose dropped her gun and charged into him. “Why are you impersonating my friend? Is this some kind of threat or test?” Her eyes narrowed, fists curling and covering her face. Then she brought back her hand and lodged it right into Jack’s nose with a sickening crunch, blood splattering everywhere. 

Before she could turn on the Doctor, she shouted, “Wait, no, Rose, it’s us!”

“Yeah, Rose. Ow, that really hurt. Nice left hook, though. Let me just straighten this out before it heals wrong. Couldn’t have a crooked nose ruin my whole face now could I?” He leant toward the Doctor, pinching the bridge of his nose, his lower face stained red and still dripping blood. “Although, I hear they’re quite dashing to some people.”

“I- I don’t even know you? We’ve never met.”

“No, no, Rose,  _ run _ .” Rose shook her head as the Doctor stared at her meaningfully. Then it clicked. 

“ _ Doctor?  _ Then-” Rose’s eyes were as wide as balloons. “No, Jack, I’m so sorry, are you all right?”

“Fine, I’m fine.” He pushed his nose back into alignment with a noise about one hundred times worse than when it was moved the first time. 

“That’s disgusting. How did you… get here?”

The Doctor looked around. The interior of the TARDIS had indeed changed but only a bit. She still had her orange stalagmite thingies but they had changed shape - like the coral they used to look like - and there were far more blue lights at the side - like the coppery round things when she still wore converse and pinstriped suits. 

It was like the two TARDISes had fused together. The two TARDISes had fused together. Oh dear this was going to be a problem. 

“Let me check something,” she headed over to the console. “Okay, this says we’re in Pete’s World, in the year 2300 CE. That can’t be right. 2300 CE?” 

“It is at the moment. At least last time I checked.” Rose moved to stare straight at the Doctor, like it was _ her _ turn to realise something. 

“This is interesting and everything but have the bathrooms moved at all?” 

“No.” “Don’t think so,” they answered in unison. Rose snickered before resuming her one sided staring match. Jack left, trying to stop the blood from ruining his clothes. 

“I don’t understand.” The Doctor had an inkling over what was going on but she didn’t like it. 

“When you took out the Bad Wolf, Doctor, you should’ve been more thorough.”

“Oh.  _ Oh, _ Rose, I am so sorry. I-” How could she have been so careless? Rose was immortal now, she didn’t deserve that. And she had abandoned her with a mortal version of herself. She should’ve checked! Or… used tongue or something!

Rose puffed out her cheeks, “I really don’t care anymore. I hold no love towards you now but I don’t hate you either. Found it exhausting to care about someone a universe away. Positively  _ or _ negatively.”

“Ah. Well, that’s nice to hear-”

Rose cut the Doctor off, “And what’ve you done to my TARDIS now.”

“How did you get a TARDIS anyway?”

“John nicked some, that’s- that’s you, the other you, and we grew it. When he died I went off. Did - did your thing. My thing. Travelling. Past, present, future. All of it. Pretty nice gig, I must say.” 

“Yeah, it is.” The Doctor was amazed. How, in all the universe, did she get here again. Here with Rose. Her wonderful, amazing, brave, valiant Rose. She checked the console again as Jack came back into the room with a freshly washed face and fully healed nose. 

“Hi, girls, what’d I miss?”

“My TARDIS has been fused with Rose’s TARDIS and we only have a few minutes to get back to our universe before this gap closes. Apparently this is the first one to open in two hundred years so we’d better hurry unless we want to stick around for a few centuries.” The Doctor’s heart was thundering and her palms were sweating, like a pig - if pigs could sweat, that is, they don’t have sweat glands - she pushed herself back on topic. She was going to have to ask Rose to make a pretty big decision in an extraordinarily small amount of time - and she couldn’t come back if Rose said no to ask again. 

“So, a lot then.”

“Jack, not now. Ugh I wish I had some custard creams!” Head in hands, she turned to Rose. “Do you know what I’m going to ask you.”

“If I want to stay here but lose my TARDIS, trap all of us here away from our home universe or come with you?”

“Yes. Which one?”

“I hate all these options but I can’t give up traveling and I can’t trap you guys here. That would be horrible, so I guess I’ll come with you.” Rose was scowling but her tone was resigned. “Now do your spock thing and get us out of here.” She winked at the Doctor, “I’ll even buy you custard creams once you get us there.”

“Okay!” The Doctor started plugging in the coordinates for a chip shop in London. That would be a nice first stop. Time to get home. 

  
  


\---

When they landed on Galatea, the Doctor wasn’t expecting it to be trying to kill them. 

Galatea was a pure white planet built by humans to be the ultimate human paradise. Originally. It started losing money in the late 4300s and opened itself up to farming. They would’ve probably done mining too if it hadn’t been a purely man made planet but unfortunately all that was under the surface was machinery and nutrient suppliers for the soil. Even before farming, they needed pretty plants and lush lawns. 

The Doctor wanted an easy adventure. One that was interesting and definitely not as dangerous as this. The minute they stepped out of the TARDIS, everything went to shit. 

It was complete chaos: people were screaming, the ground was opening up in places, rocks were flying everywhere, one of them hit Jack, Jack was now dead. Oh dear. And in the first five minutes too. 

The Doctor shrugged and with Rose’s help lifted his corpse back inside. Rose looked less alarmed than she did the first and only other time she saw Jack die. The metacrisis - John - had probably told her about it. That or she’d seen so much weirder stuff that she didn’t even notice immortal ex-time agents as odd. The Doctor mused on that for a minute. Could be both actually. 

Rose rolled her shoulders. She was surprisingly muscular and barely needed any help carrying Jack. “So I guess we have to go and fix whatever’s out there that’s causing that.”

“Yep.”

The Doctor could see how the planet had been nice once. She’d actually been there before, with Bill and Missy and Nardole as a treat. Everyone had been as expected: interested and sarcastic, murderous and morally dubious, annoying. How  _ had _ she managed to put up with Nardole for so long again?

They exited the TARDIS and the Doctor got a good look at the place. It reminded her of Greece, the houses were all white, except this took it further. It made sense, considering the name meant white as milk. However: had they heard of other colours? The Doctor liked a theme but not even some red? Pink? Yellow? Blue? 

She liked blue. TARDIS blue. 

The Doctor grabbed a woman fleeing from a sinkhole, just barely managing to save her foot from the hungry earth. “Who’s in charge around here; where are they?”

She pointed in the direction of some, _ surprise, surprise, _ white buildings that were significantly bigger than most others, arm shaking slightly. Probably in shock, poor thing. 

“Thank you,” said Rose, smiling gently at the woman. That wonderful smile. It could calm anyone down. “Now get somewhere safe, please, and stay there.”

The woman nodded hurriedly and ran off, hopefully to go do that. Woe betide the person who disobeyed or ignored Rose Marion Tyler. They headed past the crowds, dodging overhead rocky missiles and avoiding sinkholes, while trying to stop the people falling into them. No one had perished by swallowing yet though, thanks to the Doctor’s skill with her screwdriver and Rose’s gymnastic ability and strength. 

The building was eerily quiet and she felt a great sense of unease walking through it. Something was definitely going to go wrong. She still tried to give Rose a reassuring smile of encouragement. 

There was nothing and no one on the ground floor but while scanning the area, Rose keeping a watch on the door, the Doctor did find lower, extremely secure levels. 

Extremely secure for normal people, that is. 

  
  


Not for her and her trusty screwdriver though!

There were three people there. All looking equally shifty and whispering about control and land. Two scientists in lab coats and some bigshot in a suit. 

“Excuse me, who the devil are you?” Bigshot sounded angry. Good. If the Doctor was right, and she always was, he was behind this. 

“Not important. What’re you doing to the planet?” She pointed the sonic at his chest, hoping it looked close enough to a gun to work as a threat. He looked around helplessly at his employees but they just put their hands up at her. Good, this might actually be easy then. 

He grumbled something, “Sorry, didn’t quite catch that?”

“We’re farming it for resources and the planet is- Jenkins, you can explain, it’s your fault,” He glared at one of the scientists, a blonde woman with green glasses. 

“In short, we’ve been overfarming the planet because it isn’t profitable otherwise and it turns out it’s sentient and isn’t too pleased about it so it stopped complying with us and when we tried to turn off its brain, well, all this happened.” She had a shrill, unpleasant voice that grated on the Doctor’s ears. 

“Get out, all of you. I’ll fix this.”

They looked gratified, smiles lighting up their faces, thank yous pouring out like water. Idiots. She’d fix it all right. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed that. It was going to be longer but I decided to split it up and do things properly. Tell me what you thought! please cause i kinda forgot this fic existed.


	5. Chapter Four

For such an advanced planet, the Doctor was expecting a bit better quality in the stairs. They were as grimy as anything, with sludge rising up every so often, painting the walls brown… among other colours. 

She didn’t want to know what the sludge was (she totally did but already kind of knew and… yeah) but before she had to check what it was, Rose stuck her finger in it. 

“It’s not sewage, or feces of any kind,” Rose had a strange look on her face. She wiped her finger off on her hoodie and snapped her hands back into the pockets, refusing to even look at the Doctor. 

“What is it then? I have to be honest, that’s kind of a let down. I  _ was _ hoping for a planet that spewed feces as a defence mechanism,” The Doctor dipped a timid toe into a puddle of it that had gathered on a landing. Rose suddenly whirled around, eyes beaming fury, 

“You can’t help them! You can’t shut down the planet!” Her voice was controlled but there were cracks growing that reminded her of her old pink and yellow human. 

She raised her hands, like she was trying to pacify an animal. Pacify a wolf. “Rose, you can’t seriously think that I’m going to help them. The Doctor always lies. Rule number one, remember?”

“That’s not what rule number one is! Rule number one is “stay with me!”. And what is the plan then if we’re not helping the capitalist scumbags.”

The Doctor realised her fatal mistake too late. In her defence, in all her centuries of gallivanting through space and time, she’d had a lot of companions. They were easy to mix up! But “the Doctor lies” had only become a thing with Amy and her “eleventh” body. That one had so much style but why did she ever think bowties were a good idea?

Maybe she had changed too much. Maybe they had both changed too much. It had been so long for either of them that maybe they weren’t meant to relive their glory days but just… pass each other in the street occasionally. Say hi and say they’ll get coffee sometime but never do. Remember things fondly but not visit for fear of ruining things. 

That could wait for later. She was the Doctor, there was a planet to save and lives were in danger. Her personal issues could just wait for a bit. 

She did need Rose on side though, “No, sorry,” she tried to force a laugh out casually and failed, sounding like an insane grandmother, “I’m getting my numbers mixed up. “The Doctor lies” was rule number one for someone else. Sorry.” Rose’s expression cleared a bit but her brow still furrowed, “The point still stands, Rose, I’m not helping them. We have a different plan here. I can explain properly later about  _ that _ but I don’t think now is really the time. Shall we?” She offered her arm gallantly, like a proper gentlewoman, but Rose grabbed the underside of hers, taking the lead instead. 

“We can talk about this later. But first, how do you feel about walking through very potent, very wet fertiliser?”

“Wonderful.”

Spoilers: It was not wonderful. The Doctor wasn’t the most hygienic of people but even she wanted to spend at least a week rinsing away… all this. It got into her shoes, soaking right through her socks, the gross, grimy  _ sludge _ . The worst thing was, it wasn’t even smooth or evenly mixed at all - it was so thick in some parts that it was like walking through stone, and so thin in others, if it didn’t feel so disgusting, it was as easy as gliding through normal water. 

Rose didn’t seem to be having a good time either. That made it marginally better for her, at least they were suffering together. She had kind of given up though, not even thinking about her appearance, just battling it through, making it to the bitter end, a few metres away now. 

When they reached the door to the control room, the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief.  _ This  _ was how it should be. No nasty surprises about your past, no surprise visits from your childhood ex, just good and proper getting messy in the name of justice and good. 

The normalcy was good. Sure, working with Jack was great, but he still left her with that feeling, that terrible feeling of wrongness. It had gotten better over the years, sure, as he’d either started running out of lives more and more or she became immune to his immortality aura that once left her feeling like she was trying not to collapse and vomit, only held back from centuries of self-discipline and shock. 

Rose was always easier to work with. Also she never slept with anyone on their adventures. Most of the time, the Doctor hadn’t quite forgotten Adam. Poor fellow, she had alerted UNIT to his situation and they had spent a good while figuring out how to change his command to something so ridiculous that he would probably never hear it in his lifetime. Poor fellow, if not a bit stupid and whatever the opposite of cautious was, the Doctor didn’t have time to think. She had to act.

She grappled into her pocket, groaning at the sludge which was now sinking into her palm and pockets, now at chest height, and pulled out her trusty screwdriver and pointed it at the door. Obviously opening it caused a huge flood of the fertiliser into the room but they just did their best and shut the door as quickly as they could, leaving puddles on the floor. They made it though, onto another level of the killer planet: the control room. 

A machine started sparking and one of its wires snapped. “Great,” panted Rose, pulling loose hairs out of her mouth, “Fucking wonderful. We lived through that and an electrical fire is gonna kill us now. Can you shut it down, Doctor?”

“I can try,” the Doctor scanned the room, filled with makeshift booby traps and defences. She shut down the machine that was going to start the fire, from a very safe distance, and disabled the defences. 

“All done, we can get to work now,”

“Yeah, about that… what is the work?” The Doctor hadn’t exactly thought that far ahead, she had been hoping to come up with something in the sea of grossness but reminiscing had distracted her. Typical Doctor, she would have to improvise something now. 

“Um, we find the head computer and find out why it’s been doing this and strike a deal.”

Rose nodded and started looking at one side of the room, the Doctor at the other. This place, it had clearly been messed with. Whether that was the planet itself or an anarchical staff member, she wasn’t sure but it did kind of make her job harder. 

After ten minutes of looking in vain, Rose finally shouted, “Eureka! Doctor, I’ve found it!” She pulled out a tiny,  _ tiny _ , statuette of a woman with the name  _ Galatea Chief _ written on the front in tiny marble lettering, the Doctor having crossed the room to get a better look at it, 

“Hello, Galatea, I’m the Doctor, I’m here to help you,” to her absolute surprise, a booming omnipresent voice answered her, “No you’re not! Don’t try and fool me, I know you’re here to destroy me and burn me to nothing! I’m more than that, how dare you!” It was incredibly human, like a woman driven to insanity by exploitation and abuse. 

Which was really what was happening here, if the Doctor was being honest. “I’m not with those people. I’m sorry for what they did to you Galatea but I’m going to help you, if you’ll let me. Will you?” 

“Fine. If you swear on your word and you box thing that you’ll help me and get rid of those humans that are polluting me, I will stop bothering the innocent humans who just live here.”

That was a lot easier than the Doctor was expecting, she hadn’t even mentioned the other humans, but Galatea was extremely perspective. Or maybe she felt slightly guilty, “Thank you, Galatea. Would you mind awfully, getting rid of the, uh…”

“Of course,” She shut her eyes for a second, glowing blue beneath her eyelids, and opened them again “It had been drained away now. Now please put me back where I was and follow up on your side of the deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the brief hiatus, online school is surprisingly harder than expected! Hope you guys enjoyed this though!


	6. Chapter Five

It was  _ so  _ much easier getting up the stairs now that the goop was gone. Rose would never forget how that stuff felt though. It reminded her of a mission she had gone on for Other Pete with her husband and they had taken care of an alien that sneezed  _ so _ much. She still shivered thinking of that feeling but it had done wonders for her skin. 

At the top, the people from before had obviously returned, looking a bit worse for wear. The leader bloke stuck his hand out to the Doctor. She took it cautiously, “Thank you so much for calming the planet. What kind of bargain did you strike with it? Or is it braindead now?”

“Well you see, it’s always better to strike a deal in my opinion, so I did and… well, you lot have to go.” He took his hand back suddenly, face closed off, 

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, I struck a deal and the deal was that anyone who polluted Galatea had to go. And. That. Means. You. Lot.” She punctuated her point by stabbing her finger into his chest. Rose tried to stand next to her and look threatening. It worked a lot better than it had in the past but with the numbers ratio and the Doctor’s probably still standing policy on murder, she didn’t fancy their chances in a fight. 

“Don’t worry though, I’m good enough to give you a lift. Come on or I’ll let the planet deal with you.” Her voice was so cold and dark even Rose was scared of her for a minute. What had happened to make her Time Lord like this? In all fairness, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d seen the Doctor be so… murderous, but there was something in it - maybe since it’d been so long - that made her blood stop in her arteries and freeze her to the spot. 

It worked though. They followed the Doctor, waddling like ducks through the debris (although Galatea had been kind enough to close up the sinkholes) with Rose at the rear end, en route to the TARDIS. One younger man in a labcoat did try and make a run for it but he caught her eye for a second and immediately fell back in line. It reminded her of the newbie agents at Torchwood with all the tension and muffled squawking and fear. Of her. 

She’d kind of been a legend there in her day. Her and John. He was a former alien and she was from another universe like him and had saved them. 

And there was the added benefit of Mickey’s stories when he was there. That man could beat out fishwives for gossip. 

At the TARDIS, the door opened for them and the Doctor led in all of them. Jack was sitting at the console, staring despondently at a mug of coffee. “I was going to go and see what was going on but you had everything handled and,” he patted his stomach, “I wasn’t exactly feeling up for it straight away this time. Who are these?”

The Doctor explained everything while Rose took them to one of the living room suites and locked them in. Were they taking prisoners? Yes. Could they afford these people who had no moral compass to roam the TARDIS at will? No, definitely not. The TARDIS wouldn’t have let them try anything anyway but she needed the peace of mind. 

“So where’re we headed to this time to drop them off? Also can I have one?” Rose reached for the tub of custard creams and the Doctor begrudgingly handed her one. 

“Jocasta 2X75. It’s the closest next colony and one with a far closer eye on it’s officials. You’d think after humans ruined their original planet beyond repair, they’d care for their new homes but noooooo. You want a cuppa?”

“Sure.” It was strange. The Doctor… she felt so closed off. All these details she was giving her but there was this look in her furrowed eyebrows and clenched jaw, like she was forcing something deep inside her to stay hidden. Rose could relate. 

Dunking a biscuit into a steaming cup of tea was one of Rose’s favourite things. She savoured the flavour as long as she could but it was gone too quickly and the tub of custard creams was nowhere to be seen. She looked at Jack, eyes practically begging but he shrugged. “The Doctor is very protective of her custard creams.”

“Oi! I’ll have you know they’re the best thing in existence. Objectively.” There was a noise from the locked suite, and all of them turned to look at that hallway. 

“It fits with the timeline, what I did. There’s going to be an upheaval on that planet. No more of…  _ that _ . These people though? The scientists will be fine I suppose. They’ll get cushy jobs with heavy warnings. The other ones have a jail sentence for when they arrive.”

“Good. They were risking people’s lives. Innocent people’s lives in order to make a quick buck. Jail should be the least of their worries.”

\---

That night, when it was just the three of them again, Rose, instead of going back to sleep, went into the kitchen. It was a bit of a weird kitchen but you cooked there and it had a sink and a fridge so that was simply what it was. 

There were a bunch of tubes on the worksurface, one of the Doctor’s abandoned experiments or Jack’s attempt at cooking - she couldn’t be sure, and the fridge was also bigger on the inside and had all the food she could possibly want. However, her stomach wasn’t going to agree with food probably until morning so she decided to just have more tea. Tea fixed everything. 

A cupboard flipped open, filled to the brim with teas of all kinds. Liquorice, mint, raspberry, ginger. And hers. The same kind of tea she brought to the TARDIS when she officially packed up to go travelling the universe. 

The door creaked open and someone walked in, “Couldn’t sleep either?” Asked the Doctor.

“I thought Time Lords didn’t need to sleep. Aren’t you above that or something?”

She bit her lip, “Yeah, well… when there’s human companions on board and nothing else to do, hitting the hay for a few hours is a pretty good pastime. Are you making tea?”

“Of course.” Rose lifted up the kettle, turning on the old 60s hob, and placing it on the heat. “You want one?”

“Thanks.” She jumped onto the table as Rose got mugs out, old chipped ones that were probably as old as the Doctor herself. “So what’s on your mind?”

“Who said anything was on my mind?”

“You like your sleep, Rose Tyler. So there must be a reason why you’re up.”

She tried not to fiddle with her hair and give herself away, “How do you know that’s still true though. It’s been a while since we’ve been like this. A long while.”

“There is something though, isn’t there?” Her face was so open, calm, caring and Rose couldn’t stop herself.

“Bad dream, I-” and the kettle chose the right time to screech. She murmured a quick  _ thank you _ to the TARDIS and started making their drinks in earnest. When she gave the Doctor hers, the look on her face let Rose know she was not getting out of this conversation. 

“Today, the teamwork, all that stuff,” she gestured vaguely, “It’s been so long since I was the companion and not the leader and it reminded me…”

“It reminded you of him.” She put down her drink, wincing from a burnt tongue. “He- you were happy with him… weren’t you? He made you happy?”

“Yes, yes he did. I was so happy. But it was so long ago and these memories fade. That makes it easier to cope but today made me remember and it  _ hurt _ . It hurt so much to remember John and our time together and losing him was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

“i am so sorry.” The Doctor took Rose’s hands in hers, “I thought I was making the pair of you happy. That you’d be happy together. If I had known… I’d have kept you with me. Rassilon knows I could’ve done with the help.”

“You had a bad dream too?”

“Yeah… a bit more recent though. I’m guessing other me told you about the Master?” She nodded, “Well he came back. Twice actually. I thought I’d finally set him on a path to redemption but when he regenerated he lost all of that. Missy was good. Almost kind. A Bit more bloodthirsty than me to be sure but she cared. Somewhat.”

“And then she regenerated?”

“And then she regenerated. And killed people. Hundreds of people. Friends of mine, loved ones. Innocents with no fault in the matter. He was so unhinged. Out of it entirely. So-” She was struggling to find the words, tears beginning to run down her cheek. Rose raised her hand and brushed them away, not wanting to see her friend cry. 

“Gallifrey.”

“What?”

The Doctor had been staring right at her, their gazes locked, “He killed Gallifrey. The planet, the people. All of it.”

“I thought your planet was gone?”

“It’s a long story but I saved it. Everyone was alive and safe and the Daleks were gone, gone, gone. And apparently I failed. Since the Master, you know… turned them all into Cybermen.”

“He what?”

“Yeah. As a trap for me. In short, it worked. He got me. And told me. Everything.” Rose counted. One shaky breath, two shaky breaths, three shaky breaths until the Doctor managed to compose herself enough to continue. And when she was done, all Rose could do was hold her until they fell asleep on the kitchen table. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um I'm back. ik I said the hiatus was over last update but that was five weeks or something ago so please accept this chapter as an apology. Tell me what you thought though! I kinda forgot it existed ngl


	7. Chapter Six

Now, in all fairness, Jack hadn’t been  _ not _ expecting this to happen. But at the same time, he was surprised it was so fast. A little while ago, Rose was grudgingly joining their crew. Now she and the Doctor were asleep on the kitchen table together. 

Actually, they made quite a cute picture, the Doctor’s arm draped around Rose, Rose’s head nestled into the Doctor’s neck. Very cute actually. He wished he had a camera so he could embarrass them later but alas it was not to be. 

“Wakey wakey, lovebirds!”

“Jack… what?” Rose coughed a couple of times, trying to clear her throat before she hurriedly jumped off the table, trying to appear natural. And failing. “What’re you doing here in my room?”

“This is the kitchen?”

“Is it?” She looked around exaggeratedly and nodded, “Seems you’re right. I’ve got to get going then! Bye!” She ran out the room before her face turned any redder and the Doctor, who was now waking up, noticed her.

“Morning, Doctor, good sleep?”

“Hmmm? The best,” she had a dopey smile when she turned to her left before her shoulders slumped in disappointment, “Um I mean, it was fine. I don’t sleep much. Superior biology and all that.”

“‘Course.”

“Anyways, I’m going to go and get changed. I’ll meet you and Rose in the console room in half an hour. Be ready to meet royalty!”

\---

“So, Doctor, when you say royalty… what year are we going to?”

“1589. I’ve never been in this era in this body so my chances of recogniti-” She tripped when the TARDIS slanted to the side for a second and landed on the grating. “Urgh. Could you be less violent please next time?” The TARDIS made a chugging noise in response and the Doctor rolled her eyes, “ _ Sure _ , anyways... we’re here!”

The street was exactly what Jack expected. Loud, noisy and full of horse dung. Hopefully horse dung. There was some loud kerfuffle going on when he poked his head out, guard running down the street and shooting at an empty spot in the air which he was sure probably had something there a second or so ago. A big blue something. Maybe. 

“That thrice damned Doctor!” Screamed a finely dressed woman, “That bastard!”

“Oh. Not again!” Jack hadn’t noticed the Doctor come up to his shoulder, “I said 1589! Not 1599! Do you know the difference?”

“What’s going on?” Asked Rose 

“So basically… I married Queen Elizabeth I and then jumped ship and when I was with Martha, long before that, I visited this year and stuff went down with Shakespeare and she tried to have me arrested. It’s a whole… thing,”

“You married the  _ Virgin _ Queen? I thought John was messing with me!” She had the most incredulous expression on her face and Jack suddenly understood the expression ‘jaw dropping’. 

“Yeah… I did. You wanna meet her?”

“Sure, do I have to get dressed?”

“Nah, let’s just go.”

The second Jack took a step out he immediately regretted not checking the ground when he felt a horrible squish underneath his foot, “These shoes were new!”

“That’s on you for not looking! Come on, we’ll miss her!” They were following the litter which was carrying the queen, all surrounded by guards. 

“So what’s the plan?”

“This!” The Doctor jumped at the front of the train, “SO SORRY YOUR MAJESTY!”

“Who are you? What- what are you wearing! I am  _ not _ having a good day but you seem entertaining. Dine with me. That’s an order!”

They were rustled between guards, “Well that was easier than expected,” remarked the Doctor. “Honestly it was a 50/50 whether we’d get put in jail or this.”

“You’re insane,” but Rose sounded fond when she said it. Jack felt like he was intruding a bit but maybe he could have a little fun back. It was all in the flirting. 

\---

The food was excellent. Very greasy though. Jack was honestly surprised at how much the queen could eat. He could swear she just downed half a pig. Time to set his plan in action. 

“Your Majesty, I have seen portraits and heard of how beautiful you are but that is nothing to yourself in person.”

“Why, thank you, I could never be less though.” She turned to the Doctor, “What did you say your name was?”

The Doctor obviously hadn’t thought this part out beforehand, her eyes bulged and she hesitated for a second, “... Joan. Joan Smith, Your Majesty.”

“A good name. And you are..?”

“Rose Tyler… ma’am.”

“You know, it seems to me that if one of you,” she poked her finger between the two of them, “Were a man, you would make a very fine couple. Almost as fine as myself and England.”

Rose pasted on a fake smile for a second and the Doctor’s ears visibly burned but Jack managed to save them by asking the queen more questions, “Tell me, where do you get those jewels, they completely bring out your complexion. Like a goddess.”

He was laying it on far thicker than he would normally but the combined expressions of distaste and relief on both Rose and the Doctor’s faces, were worth it. 

“Now tell me, Smith, where did you get those clothes? Are you a travelling jester of sorts?”

“Yes. Yes I am a jester. In training, that is,” Jack thought for all the years the Doctor had been around for, she was truly awful at lying.

“Do a trick, show me.”

She put down her plate of chicken which she had been eating with her fingers and wiped her hands off the grass before flipping herself into a handstand. 

“Wonderful! Show me another one!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Jack POV! I hope you guys liked this one, please tell me what you thought. It's a bit shorter than normal but I felt this was a good place to cut it off

**Author's Note:**

> I've been stewing on this idea since the start of quarantine and i'm now finally writing it. Please tell me what you thought and I hope you guys enjoyed it!
> 
> my tumblr is @captainjackscrushes-and-co if you wanna check it out


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